Family weekend

This past weekend my entire family got the chance to be together and make a skiing vacation out of it. I love times like this when we all get together. It always turns into a madhouse, especially with all the nieces and nephews running around but I wouldn't change a thing. Well maybe the high pitch screams, but other then that nothing. We all got to go skiing, my brother helped out with teaching my littlest niece how to ski, snowmen were built, games were played, olympics were watching (rooting for Canada), and memories made.

First seen on High Heels and Tutus

Don't mind the middle snowman. One of my nieces (not shown) is a little to young to know what she was doing, but we all got a laugh when we noticed.

Kitty Photos

My husband isn't a fan of photos so during my nicole's classes I would have to rely on my cats.  Since my siamese cat was afraid of my large SLR camera and would run whenever I would point it at him I could only count on my Chloe girl.  I still get a kick out of pointing my camera at Malad though, I don't know why he's so afraid. But here are some of my favorites that I took of my furry little girl.

A lesson I've also learned from these photos. I really need to clean my windows. Gross.

New Years resolutions

I like to think of these as goals instead of resolutions. Resolutions are always depressing because I always fail within 2 weeks. Goals are something I work towards all year. Now I make a ton of goals and they might change throughout the year but right now these are my top 5 main goals of the year.

1. Travel

I love to travel and I try to go to at least 1 country I've never been to before at least once a year. But I also want to travel more around locally.  I want to take advantage of my weekends. I read a book last year that talking about making a vacation out of every weekend. To visit things local, do something you've always wanted to. Take back your weekends instead of laying around and wasting that time. I am going to try to do this more often. 

2. Start our remodel.

My husband and I bought an older home a little over a year ago that still has the original 1939 upstairs. We would love to remodel the whole upstairs but this year I plan to at least start on it. We did a lot of yard work last year but unfortunately every time we save up money something large breaks at the house. I've heard this is typical of homeownership though.

3. Write in a journal.

I use to write in a journal all the time. I always thought it would be something that I'd always do but once I took off for my study abroad, got married, and bought a house all in a year I stopped. I was too busy, but I did start blogging so in some way it's been my journal. But this was a point in my life when I would want to read back on that time the most and I didn't document it as well as I'd hoped. So I plan to write in a journal this year. Luckily my mother in law gave me this incredible journal that is for the next 5 years.  It asks a question for every day and gives you 5 slots to answer for the next 5 years. How fun is that to read back what you wrote for the next 5 years.

4. Learn to cook.

My poor husband has to deal with me who only knows how to cook about 6 things and they still aren't the best. I would love to know how to cook a turkey dinner with all the sides and dessert and host a dinner with our family or friends. That is my goal this year, to learn a meal I can be proud of and to learn how to cook better overall.

5. Reduce my spending on clothes. 

I have been making myself sick lately with how much money I'm just tossing by spending it on clothes. I am a firm believer of spending a lot of money on quality products because they last longer. I am never going to change that way of thinking. I have too many classical pieces that have lasted me 5, 10+ years so it's worth the money I spent on them. But I have also been turned onto thrifting and have found amazing products for just a few dollars. I am not saying that I can only buy thrifted clothes this year, I would have already failed that, but I would like to spend less then I normally do and I think if I thrift more often then online shopping then I will be able to achieve this goal as well as put that money towards traveling or my remodel. It's a win win all over.

Yes I'm late at posting these but I like to think about what I want to achieve for the year to come. What are some of your goals this year?

Thrifting

My coworker has got me hooked on thrifting lately. Yes, I am very late to jumping on the bandwagon but glad I finally did. We ended up meeting during lunch hour and browsing and I came out quite satisfied with my find. I found a brand new, tags still on, hardware still safely packaged BURBERRY make up bag. Yes you read that right, Burberry. Not only was it new Burberry but it was priced $1.99, which after a 20% off coupon I got it for $1.59. I walked out of that store with a shirt, blazer, make up bag, and wallet for around $15.00. I am now officially a thrift shopping fan. Take a look at this beauty.

Date night nitro circus

What's more fun the going on amazing date night with your husband? Going with your family that all lives here. My brothers put together an adventure filled night going to see nitro circus. Luckily everyone living here agreed to go and it made it that much better. We started the night out with all 13 of us eating at CPK which was a zoo in itself. Not only for the size if our party but I think everyone else had the same idea as us. After heading to the delta center and getting into our awesome seats the fireworks began. I was sitting on the edge of my seat most of the night. Around 9 they announced a 15 minute intermission. I couldn't believe the show was going to continue. I was so excited I didn't leave my seat. I lost my voice less then half way through the show and my hand was killing me from cheering on all the athletes. These guys and girls were unbelievable. I couldn't believe that they pulled people out of the audience and performed stunts with them. If you ever get the chance to see nitro circus I highly recommend it. I'm glad I didn't miss out. I didn't take many photos because I didn't want to miss a single thing but here are the ones I did.

Family Photos

I think its important to get family photos at least once a year. Or I think you should at least try. My husband, like most men, hate taking photos. Even though he is so photogenic.

So when I informed him that we would be taking family photos this year his response was. What family? Yes dear, you and I are a family, even though we don't have any children, except our 2 kitties, we are still considered a family.  After we took them I informed him this will be occurring every year in the future if I remember to plan it and that 1 hour out of 365 days isn't that bad to sacrifice to make his wife happy.  These were the results and I was quite pleased with the little cooperation and not going far to take them.

He seriously make me laugh so hard all the time.  Even when I am so upset he can some how make me relax and laugh about it.

Suja cleanse

I am not a healthy eater, you could take it as far as calling me a junk food junkie. This was our first year in our home for Halloween and we didn't know how much candy to prepare for. Of course we bought too much, 2 huge costco size bags. Unfortunately we only had 12 trick or treaters this year and even though they each got a hand full we ended up with lots of left overs. I am one to not turn down a treat and my in laws gave me their left overs as well. I have been stuffing my face full of junk and have actually felt guilty about it. So what do I do, I decide to do my 1st cleanse ever. I have heard wonderful things about the suja cleanse so I figured for my first one ever this would be a perfect start. Now before anyway gets defensive that has done this cleanse before I want to admit that I'm not healthy when it comes to food choices so my opinion is coming from someone that is trying to make healthy choices but her taste buds are use to sweets.

All I heard about this cleanse was how good it tasted and how people weren't ever hungry with this cleanse. I will agree with one of the two points. I wasn't ever hungry in this cleanse. I craved food, especially while sitting at a lunch office meeting and smelling all the food, or watching my husband cook dinner for himself while I chugged down a juice with spinach. I was never hungry though. I on the other hand did not find these to be oh so good tasting.

I opened the first juice in the morning with high spirits and proud of my good choices for the day, took the first sip and instantly wanted something sweet to take this horrible taste out of my mouth. Glow is the first drink with apple as the main ingredient but the other ingredients overpower this drink. My first thought was I was eatting leaves. The collard greens, spinach, and celery were very overpowering. I discovered the best method for me was to just chug the drink and get it over with. Fuel was next and I was a little nervous about the carrot orange color but figured this drink had promise, carrot, orange, apple, pineapple, lemon, and turmeric were all the ingredients, those didn't sound horrible to me.  This one was so much better tasting to me and I started to get high hopes for the rest. When it still came down to it I had to chug this drink as well though. Next was Purify and I'm not going to lie the red color gave me high hopes. I'm like a child with candy; the bright colors of pink, red, and grape always taste better. Beets and celery just punched me in the face and I had to chug the drink yet again. Purify did taste better to me then glow, not as good as fuel, but I still wasn't jumping for joy. I still have high hopes for myself and head off to a lunch work meeting. Luckily I was full and had no food myself to tempt me because watching and smelling everyone's lunches would have normally made me cave. To be honest I felt satisfied at this point and proud to talk about my cleanse amongst my co-workers. My spirits were still high.

I get home a lot later then I had hoped. I should have brought a drink with me to work cuz now I'm staring at 2 drinks that are both green. First thought that come to mind, celery and spinach. Of course the 1st one I need to get down has both of those ingredients. Fiji is staring at me as a glare back at it. I was afraid of the kale, spinach, and collard greens but what got me was the ginger. It left the strongest after taste which I couldn't get rid of. Maybe this was a good thing I had to play catch up to disguise this after taste. The more I drank the more flavors I pulled out of the juice. Lemon ginger, spinach and celery filled my taste buds. You would think the ginger spice would leave a good taste in your mouth but it wasn't pleasant to me. I kept trying to think of gingerbread cookies. Oh yum cookies! I immediately open green supreme and start to drink up. Now the name has been scarring me all day. Green supreme doesn't sound like a good one. Is it just me, this drink has been the best one so far. Or am I just getting use to these odd foreign things going into my junkfood body. Apple, kale, and lemon are the only ingredients in the green supreme and I'm not going to lie, yes I could taste the kale but I was pleasantly surprised. I still chug this drink though.

After a few hours it's time for my dessert, my favorite time of dinner. I am really looking forward to vanilla cloud.  Water, coconut, honey, almonds, acerola cherry, cinnamon, vanilla bean, nutmeg, and camu camu. Most of things sound like heaven to me. I shake up the drink real good and taste a sip. Best one so far  but the texture is throwing me off a little. I'm still not loving these but I tell myself last one and it's not so bad. I still chug it. They all needed to be chugged in my eyes. But I'm also so proud of myself for not giving in and eating that roll that was screaming my name. I don't know if my husband helped me or made it harder. The hardest moment was starring at 2 green drinks while my husband cooks dinner. I thought I was going to cave, I begged for little bites of his meal. I even felt envious of our 2 cats as they got little scrapes and he wasn't willing to spare any my way. I am grateful for his stinginess now. I know he did it for me. He knew I'd be disappointed if I caved and didn't pull through. He was right. I am so glad I did this cleanse. I feel a lot better today. I honestly do, I am not craving the candy that still sits in a bowl in the front room. I am writing this with the temptation right there and this is the first time I realize I don't want to reach for a piece. I was so excited to wake up this morning and eat real food though. Yes I did the 1 day cleanse, I didn't stretch myself too much but for a junkfood junkie and a 1st time cleanser I thought that was the smart choice. Why set myself up for failure, start with something small that I know I can achieve. In 2 years I'll be doing the 5 day cleanse. Would I do this cleanse again? Yes I would. It was easy having the drinks already made for me and the fact that I was full the entire day.  Am I totally looking forward to the 3 day cleanse? Of course not, I would be lying if I said they tasted so good to me, but I now know what to expect and will just chug the drinks quicker next time.